Bachelor of Fine Arts
Fine Art
Degrees and Certificates
Program Learning Outcomes
Skills
Graduates will be able to:
- Use a wide range of materials and techniques effectively
- Demonstrate technical knowledge as it pertains to a contemporary art practice
Knowledge
Graduates will be able to:
- Articulate a complex understanding of artistic practices and art history
- Situate their own practice within both contemporary and art historical contexts
Synthesis
Graduates will be able to:
- Draw from diverse sources for their work
- Synthesize external sources into their work
- Demonstrate openness and curiosity in their practice
- Activate complex relationships between knowledge and materiality in their work
- Show a deep engagement with research
Communication
Graduates will be able to:
- Articulate a clear vision for their work and actively engage in critical dialogue around their work
- Articulate critical positions within their work in written and verbal form
Discipline
Graduates will be able to:
- Undertake a lifelong practice with rigor and ambition
- Demonstrate a high level of ambition and commitment
Discover your unique voice through a rigorous process of training, questioning and discovery.
Students can pursue a broad education in Fine Art or focus on Illustration. All students can simultaneously pursue a Designmatters minor in Social Innovation. We foster an intimate community of artists who develop the tools to excel in the global art world through collaboration, experimentation and risk taking.
Summer Program
The undergraduate Fine Art Department also runs a unique program in the Summer, which is modeled on the artist residency. Designed to provide artists with space and time to focus intensely on their work, all Fine Art students enrolled in the Summer term are assigned one of our forty-five artist studios while taking a selection of intensive student-led courses for eight weeks of in-class instruction and six weeks of independent studio time or individually-directed experience.
Curriculum is subject to change.
For students entering Fall 2026
Courses
Re-Thinking Art
This course expands student awareness of contempory art activity through a selective examination of modern and post-modern values. Related projects explore critical issues in diverse mediums.
Credits
3
Painting 1
This introductory class provides a rigorous introduction to both technical and formal problems in painting. Emphasis is placed on understanding the fundamentals of the painter's craft through a range of available materials; including pigments and paints, structures, surfaces and grounds, brushes and tools, varnishes and preservation strategies. Students will have the opportunity to explore a variety of mediums. Subject matter is explored through traditional painting genres of still life, landscape, figure and portrait, symbol and allegory.
Credits
3
Wet Paint
In the course, Wet Paint: Painting is painting, and there's no other art medium that maintains such a significant, yet ambiguous place in visual culture and human history. This course will investigate contemporary practices and current approaches to the art of painting locally, nationally, and globally, with an emphasis on examining work formally, philosophically, and from an historical viewpoint. Students will be responsible for developing their own body of work, preparing presentations, and participating in group critiques and discussions. There also will be weekly reading assignments and exercises to complete. Throughout, an attempt will be made to integrate studio practice and academic thinking into a composite whole. Wet Paint is a class taught jointly with Fine Art and Illustration faculty.
Credits
3
Oil Painting 1
This introductory class provides a rigorous introduction to both technical and formal problems in oil painting. Emphasis is placed on understanding the fundamentals of the painter's craft through a range of aspects of this historic medium including pigments, paints, structures, surfaces, grounds, brushes, tools, varnishes and preservation strategies. Subject matter will be explored through traditional painting genres of still life, landscape, figure and portrait, symbol and allegory.
Credits
3
Art of Photo
Art of Photography is a course that will focus on photography as a Fine Art medium (non-commercial). Through lectures and readings students will gain insights into both historical and contemporary lens-based practices. Projects will explore independent personal investigations, while technical lessons in printing and production will take place in the UFA digital printing lab.
Credits
3
From 2D to 3D: Intro to CnC
FROM 2D TO 3D: Intro To CnC This course is an introduction to the basic skills of CnC technology, with an emphasis on the integration of these skills into a variety of art studio practices. Students will learn how to translate ideas from sketches to simple CAD drawings on accessible programs like Illustrator and Sketchup, and then see them come to fruition by carving them on the class small scale CnC cutter. Students will also be introduced to a variety of artists who utilize these skills in their work in inventive ways.
Credits
3
Sculpture 1
Sculpture 1 is an introductory sculpture class is comprised from a selection of diverse concepts, materials and processes that are associated with the subject of contemporary sculpture. This class is for the student who wishes to explore other methods of art production and to expand their conceptual development, as well as technical skills, and awareness of contemporary sculpture. We will discuss a wide range of ideas that pertain to sculpture, its history and status as: object, materials, process, craft, space, the temporal, and the experiential. You will be required to complete projects along with several homework assignments. The materials and processes we will focus on are: wood, steel, plaster, sheet metal, and plexi-glass. Other materials such as fiberglass, clay, fabric, found objects, etc. and other media are also available for any of the projects. Each project will be guided in regard to the required materials (wood, steel, plastic) but will allow for an expanded application of craft, spatial exploration, and conceptual issues. The idea of this class is to engage you with the subject of sculpture for the entire term and to use the full range of facilities that are available here at Art Center. Think of the College shops and labs as your workspaces and as an extension of this classroom. The shops are staffed with highly skilled technicians who are available to assist you with the technical aspects of your projects. The class discussions will play a crucial role in contextualizing the students' projects.
Credits
3
Drawing 1
Drawing 1 explores the role of contemporary Fine Art in the form of drawing projects with lectures on a range of subjects and procedures pertinent to drawing. The basic learning objectives for Drawing 1 will focus on developing & maintaining a sketch book; understanding the difference between drawing from direct observation and drawing from photography; exploring the differences between abstraction and nonobjective drawing, as well as, creating drawings as site-specific projects.
Credits
3
Home Studio Workshops
Home Studio Workshops is a response to our current moment. In light of our new circumstances -- limitations on space, the necessity of fabrication and conversation -- much of what we have taken for granted must be re-thought. How can you better document your work - lighting, digital tools? How can you make the best visual argument for your work "without" compromising the integrity of your work. What processes or ideas would you like to learn to keep the development of your work at home creative?
The information shared and demonstrated in Home Studio Workshops will be practical in nature. Everyone artist has specific ways in which they work and these workshops will respond to directly to questions and concerns you have about representing, making, presenting your work in the best manner possible with tools already at hand. From a DIY sensibility to digital design, Home Studio Workshops can help you neutralize the playing field to your advantage.
HSW will meet via ZOOM in group and with individualized problem-solving sessions.
Credits
0
Studio Practice
Studio Practice introduces students to a series of practical materials, processes, methods and studio engagements that are associated with developing and maintaining a studio-based art practice. Students also explore expanded applications of the terms 'studio' and 'practice'.
This course is a pre-requisite for ART-204, Art Structures and Systems.
Credits
3
Studio Lab
Reserved studio time for Fine Art students in terms 1-3.
Credits
0
Art: Structure and Systems
Art Structures and Systems is designed specifically for 4th Term Fine Art students who are now ready to examine their work through larger contexts. Students build a growing understanding of how their work (and that of others) is situated within structures and systems of knowledge, which inform not only art-making but also their experiences in the world. Additionally, this course focuses on the individual student's art-making as a developing art practice, which entails producing a small body of work and developing the tools needed to navigate and articulate the connections between one's making and thinking.
This course is a pre-requisite for 5th Term Review.
Credits
3
Advanced Sculpture
Advanced Sculpture focuses on student-driven projects, moving forward from the material investigations and three-dimensional concepts introduced in Sculpture One. Students will gain deeper knowledge of sculpture history and the veins of contemporary sculpture. Initial concept development will be tested in multiple material experimentations and supported with additional workshops in new materials. Students develop presentation skills including more nuanced finishing details, installation strategies, and verbal and written articulation of ideas. Areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to--site and body, objects and props, monuments and ephemerality. Course work includes three projects with graded stages of development, readings with written responses, workshop exercises, installation and critique, and field trips.
Credits
3
Adv Sculpture Workshop
This course will focus on individualized instruction for advanced sculpture students, including skill building and problem solving, critiques and selected readings.
Credits
3
Adv Sculpt: Dig Explorations
Digital Explorations is an Advanced Sculpture class with a focus on introducing artists to ways of incorporating digital technologies and processes into their sculptural making practice. Through hands-on contact with 3D Printing, CnC Milling, and Laser Cutting, students will consider various ways that these assistive technologies can enhance their work physically, aesthetically and conceptually.
Credits
3
Visiting Artist Program
Visiting Artist Program provides our students the opportunity to access new perspectives and new information by granting them adjacency to different points-of-view through visiting artist lectures and studio visits.
Visiting Artist Program is required once, but may be taken a second time as an elective, allowing students to have multiple opportunities to work with outside artists.
Credits
3
Openings
Openings is a course run by Grad Art and Undergrad Fine Art. It is a one credit unit, student-led class that explores the Los Angeles art scene. There will be six meetings over the course of the 14-week term where students from both departments attend the latest gallery and museum exhibitions across LA. Students, with the help of the Grad TA, will decide what exhibitions to see. Class runs on Saturday afternoons. Credit fulfillment is based on attendance and engagement (specifics of requirements are decided by the group.)Openings is a course run by Grad Art and Undergrad Fine Art. It is a one credit unit, student-led class that explores the Los Angeles art scene. There will be six meetings over the course of the 14-week term where students from both departments attend the latest gallery and museum exhibitions across LA. Students, with the help of the Grad TA, will decide what exhibitions to see. Class runs on Saturday afternoons. Credit fulfillment is based on attendance and engagement (specifics of requirements are decided by the group.)
ART-222A replaces ART-305
Credits
1
Installation 1
What makes an art-work an installation? How do we consider and evaluate our experience of a work that does not have finite edges, that depends on a space that already exists, that makes a new space, that we move through or are immersed in, that may or may not even have any discrete object?
In this class, we explore the role of context and environment while learning about and making installations in a variety of media. In general, "Installation Art" is work that integrates or is dependent on its site, rather than being seen on the wall or on a pedestal exclusively. Installation art is often work which envelops the viewer, rather than maintaining a viewer/object separation. The distinction between "Installation" and other forms can be ambiguous. We will continually enlarge our sense of what constitutes "Installation" as a category.
Our aim in this class is to introduce you to the vocabularies and practice of installation, and give you the ability to analyze and utilize space as a crucial component of an artwork. Participants will develop a heightened awareness of formal, environmental, conceptual and historical contextual concerns in their artworks, through the creation of installations. These skills will continue to be relevant to your art practices beyond the class, whether or not you continue to make installations, as developing an awareness of context is crucial to all art making, and particularly to exhibition. Verbal and written communication skills will be developed through specific writing assignments, structured class critiques, and presentations. The practice of Installation is not dependent on any one particular set of skills or specialties. You may work in any media for any project.
Credits
3
Deviant Practices
This studio class is designed to address a problem we all have, throughout our lives as artists: the rut. We become complacent about our art work, the routines we have in the studio, our usual relationship to our ideas and our materials. It's useful to shake ourselves up, do something that seems opposed to our usual paths. This course works as an exorcism for the same-old, same-old. Through projects, discussions of art, films and literature, we will challenge you to question ideas of mistakes or wrong turns and to explore how notions of good and bad are formed in art making. We'll push you to divert from any style or formula that your work might have taken, to follow paths that you may be neglecting in the creative process. Come make "bad art" with us!
Credits
3
Aux: Curatorial Practicum
Auxiliary: Curatorial Practicum
This activity will look for strategies and coordinate the shared "visual display" areas at 870 while expanding student participatory ART experiences.
This activity offers a "hands-on" experience for students interested in the practical nature of curating. Using a "cradle to grave" approach, we will identify issues, locate work, create communications surrounding exhibition experiences in the physical and digital environments: with the general public in mind.
[This is not room planning, authorization seeking or permission granting activity.]
Credits
3
Performing Thru Installation
Performing through Installation In this class we explore the role of one's environment while learning about and making performance and installations based work. Over the course of the semester students will think about the role of performance art as an extension of daily experience and gain a better understanding of what it means to use their body, identity and personal experiences as a tool in an artistic practice. Utilizing methods such as, "Installation Art," they will produce their own unique vocabulary of actions, gestures and movements as it pertains to site the artwork is being produced. Through readings, lectures and extensive in-class and out-of-class assignments, students will focus upon removing notions of success, talent and failure.
Credits
3
Expanded Drawing
The lines of a drawing are driven by a myriad of hand-hewn pathways. Directions are not immediately clear, but through inquisition and exploration, we are able to trail blaze new and extraordinary images to fill our frames. Building from the fundamental techniques developed in Drawing 1, Expanded Drawing: Purpose and Play offers students the time and space needed to sweeten their drawing field of view. Through thematic prompts, propellant projects, and constructive critiques, we will make direct contact with our intentions and reignite the magic of visual formulation within ourselves. "What am I doing and why am I doing it?" This studio course cultivates individual and collaborative solutions necessary to elicit an enthusiastic reconnection with mark-making.
Credits
3
Social Practice 1
Social Practice 1 will look at the history and approaches artists are developing in using the real world as an expressive and ideological medium.
The engagement in stories, conversations, and histories is how we make sense, how we remember, articulate/re-articulate, our experiences, memories, and fantasies. By talking with, collecting, recording, and engaging with others in the community, we become agents of change and transformation.
In this class we will develop and work on projects that help us understand the roles of social narratives. We will also discuss films, video art, and contemporary film and art theory that explore the relationship of the self to the Other and embody a spirit of resistance. Radical forms will be used to investigate roles of gender, multi-culturism as well as positions of difference, opposition and empathy. Social Practice 1 is a fine art studio class.
Credits
3
Picturing the Now
This class will function as a sort of workshop for thinking through contemporary ethical questions around such things as rights and access to public spaces and institutions, ownership of images and representation, funding and adjudicating structures within art institutions; diversity and accessibility in representation and production, censorship, etc. We will work at developing a language and a skill for critical evaluation of ethical questions with the expressed goal of building this lens into our production, participation and viewership as artists. This course will approach the topic of ethics as a dynamic practice that demands constant engagement and re-evaluation both inside and out of the studio. This begins with the recognition that while work may be made in private, the exhibition, reception and sale of work is fundamentally a public act that necessitates a separation of intention from outcome, and a fluency in interpretation and contextualization alongside the development of craft. Subjects such as the current uprisings against racial, gender and sexual injustice; the COVID-19 pandemic; historical imperatives in representation; codes of ethics; political and artist manifestos; copyright laws and legal cases brought by and against artists; and historical instances of censorship, defacement and boycott of art works and monuments will be treated as test-cases that reveal or point to the underlying values and assumptions of their producers.
Credits
3
Collaborative Magic
"Collaborative Magic, Creativity and the NFT Phenomenon"
This class provides an opportunity to participate in a collaborative process. Collaboration can expand how you think about your creativity in relationship to others - aesthetically, socially, economically. In "CM" students will learn how to develop a collaborative project within an open model of sharing and discourse. It will be a creative adventure.
"How can I use collaboration to make better design/art?"
In this class, students will first invent/create/design a visual concept/project of their own individual making. These individual concepts/projects will then be brought together and synthesized within a group to produce an imaginative outcome, or hybrid.
Experimentation is the bread and butter of this class and you are highly encouraged to push your boundaries and find new tools to express yourselves. During the class "studio-time," beside working through the collaborative problem-solving process, we will also discuss technology from the phenomenon of NFTs, which surfaced in popularity in only the last 12 months, algorithms and more.
Students in all departments are welcome. All projects will be student-generated week by week. You do not need to have a project in mind to enroll in the class. The more varied our creative pool, the more prescient the final collaborative projects will become.
Credits
3
Handmade
Hand-Made In this course we will explore the terrain of the hand-made, beginning with contemporary ventures expanding traditional craft. Many works of radical craft, by individual artists and designers as well as collectives, will be explored. We will shift back and forth across the line of art and design until it blurs, tracing histories from Ruskin and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Industrial Revolution London, to the present. Sustainability and environmental considerations will be linked to these practices. The interdependence of hand-craft and technology will be considered, as current hand-craft endeavors can be partially understood as a reaction to our culture's predominant and impersonal corporate design; while at the same time a craft community is brought together via blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
An important component of the class will be learning a variety of hand making skills that extend particular crafts, such as knitting & sewing among others. There will also be presentations, readings and discussions with visiting artists and shop faculty. As a project-based studio workshop, the class will emphasize learning through making, focused on creating work using particular hand making skills.
Credits
3
Intro to Printmaking
This course teaches beginning to advanced printmaking processes of intaglio, lithography, silk screen and photographic printing in the 870 Printshop environment. The manipulation of inks, media, printing papers, and technical mastery are highly emphasized. The class is based on tutorials, studio-time and critiques.
Credits
3
Printmaking
This course teaches beginning to advanced printmaking processes of intaglio, lithography, silk screen and photographic printing in the 870 Printshop environment. The manipulation of inks, media, printing papers, and technical mastery are highly emphasized. The class is based on tutorials, studio-time and critiques.
Credits
3
Artist's Books
Artists' Books For students who want to explore making sequentially developed ideas in traditional and nontraditional book forms. Creating books is a powerful way to infuse your practice by finding new methods to come at ideas and themes, and it also increases visibility of your work and professional profile.
Students will learn how to conceptualize and produce artists' books through assignments, critique and exposure to tools and materials. The course also includes field trips to see the works and studios of people who produce artists' books and/or run presses and print shops.
Students will produce books intended for the production of multiple copies, rather than single copy hand-made volumes. Production techniques that will be covered and may be used for final production include silkscreen, offset, riso and digital printing as well as researching materials, papers and book binding methods. In addition to producing their own book works, students will research the history and methodologies of different book art practitioners, and study narrative and conceptual approaches to using sequential page formats.
Credits
3
Painting:Materials&Techniques
What is painting now? This course examines opportunities for painting inthe 21st Century - looking at how artists make work now. With a focus on acrylic paint, this class offers a comprehensive understanding of both traditional and contemporary methods and materials used in painting. It provides a basic knowledge of application tools and brushes, preparation of grounds and surfaces, color and pigments, painting mediums and preservation strategies.Through an examination of both the process and effects of painting, including demonstrations and exercises, students learn to how to analyze and execute various painting techniques while developing an awareness of contemporary painting strategies.
Credits
3
Collage
This studio course explores the history, practice and visual diversity in collage language. The course will be structured around three major projects that utilize the process of building a personal code/index using collage. Implementing found, observed and appropriated two-dimensional elements, students will create a visual language that best positions their ideas. Utilizing traditional and alternative ways of looking at pictures, students will investigate and research their biographical, geographical and or interpersonal connections to the images and objects that they love. These collections of media will be used as a catalyst to create narrative metaphors and sequential structures within their compositions. Students may use any medium to experiment and apply to the collage discourse. 3 credits
Credits
3
Artist Residencies
In this course students will delve into the research, application, and interview process for artist residencies. Artist residencies offer the opportunity to spend a period of time developing into and focusing on a specific project. No two residencies are alike; though they may offer similar opportunities, they commonly have different requirements. Some provide funding, while others may require you to host a workshop. You may prefer a self-guided residency, while other artists gravitate towards a more structured program. You might be the only artist present, or you could find yourself immersed in a creative community.
This class will show students how to identify opportunities that are best suited for their practice. We will research various artist residencies to identify the pros and cons of each. Students will prepare to apply to a residency, while envisioning how it will benefit their creative process. Students will leave this class understanding how to research, prepare application materials, and interview. Students will then be able to utilize their research and preparation skills when approaching work opportunities, mentor-ships, grants, and more.
Credits
1
Painting Topics
"Painting Topics" is an intermediate level painting course. "Through experimentation, research, making, and critical conversation, students will develop a body of work that generates and addresses their own questions about painting. Students will confront the material nature of paint and consider their work in an art historical context as well as being engaged with the contemporary dialogue in fine art." Open to all students.
Credits
3
Video 1
Video 1 is a creative and critical exploration into the moving image in art and culture. As an introductory course, students learn basic skills of shooting and editing as well as the physical and structural elements in the development and construction of moving image projects. Students build their understanding of contemporary video by investigating historical precedences in film, art and culture, as well as delving into socio-political content, and inter-subjective relations at play in moving image works. Students expand their creative practice through the exploration and production of three video-based projects over the term.
Credits
3
Occupy the Monitors
Occupy the Monitors
All over campus, flat screen monitors silently stream useful information-upcoming events, student award-winners, CSE activities and the like-more than a dozen networked monitors all doing what they were designed to do: communicate event information. In this course, we will use these monitors as a venue for exhibiting original works and calling attention to things we care about. Solo and collaborative projects, as digital stills and silent videos, will be screened on these school monitors throughout the term. Some projects will in inserted among the usual flow, while others will take over the monitors completely for a day or more.
Class time will be split between the production, exhibition and critique of original student work and the exploration of historical precedents relevant to our project, exploring practices that "occupy" sites not normally intended for an encounter with art, disrupt the dominant visual economy, or meet their audience in a range of unexpected places, from inside a gallerist's ear to outside the earth's atmosphere.
Credits
3
Art & Photography
Photography reflects the illogic of defining present day art-making as media-specific; it is a "field" produced out of the intersections of digital-imaging, drawing, cinema, performance, sculpture, painting, and even sound. In turn, photography stands released, so to speak, from its responsibilities as document and representation. In this course will look at photography as invention, play and experience, which addresses what-is-photography, what-is-now in the 21st century. This course is project based, and includes lectures, readings and discussions, visiting artists/curators. Critiques and discussions will be planned for individual student projects, as well as the production of a student-curated exhibition and small exhibition catalog. Studio hours (3.00) (3.00 cr), Pre-requisite: ART-204
Credits
3
Advanced Video Art
Advanced Video Art builds on knowledges and practices gained in Video One and applies them to more complex projects. Readings, screenings, and discussions will enhance an understanding of contemporary discourses and conceptual frameworks of video and film in art. Students will work on independently driven projects that explore time-based media forms such as single channel video, analogue film production, video performance, and installation.
Credits
3
Advanced Video Art
Advanced Video Art builds on knowledges and practices gained in Video One and applies them to more complex projects. Readings, screenings, and discussions will enhance an understanding of contemporary discourses and conceptual frameworks of video and film in art. Students will work on independently driven projects that explore time-based media forms such as single channel video, analogue film production, video performance, and installation.
Credits
3
Sound
Sound is a Fine Art studio course focusing on the subject of sound and its relationship to Fine Art practices including the gallery and public arts. The course will expose students to a brief survey of the sonic history, technological advancements, related discourse, and current practices that artists have developed to incorporate sound as a Fine Art practice. Class time includes hands on practices in the sound lab, working with sound in all capacities, such as records, CD, mp3, cassettes, live performance, as well as an introduction to the ways in which sound can be recorded, edited, and manipulated digitally. Course presentations include demonstrating how the use of sound has been incorporated with other practices such as sculpture, performance, social practice, and installation.
Credits
3
New Media Arts
This course examines the relationship of art to new digital media. Various aspects of new media such as the world wide web will be used to research and generate artist projects. Topics such as interactivity, digital sculpture, and time based arts will be explored.
Credits
3
Investigative Aesthetics
Investigative Aesthetics addresses various practices at the intersection of contemporary art and investigative journalism. Based on the tenets of the independent research agency Forensic Architecture based at Goldsmiths University of London the course will seek to move beyond contouring or critiquing histories from a distance and aim to come up with strategies that intervene and produce evidence that result in new kinds of information and knowledge. Forensic Architecture consists of a multidisciplinary team that employ counter forensics that turn the forensic gaze onto investigations of state agencies and dominant narratives. Their evidence is presented in political and legal forums, truth commissions, courts, and human rights reports, and we will focus on using this model as a means to investigate issues that are usually discussed in contemporary art practice, but rarely addressed with this intensity or rigor. Collectively we will seek to find working methodologies for engaging and addressing the complexities of local and international crisis related to human rights and ecocide and will focus on how to intervene and take a stake in historical outcomes that are being sorted out in the present. The class will also consider how the evidence gathered in this investigative practice can have a hybridized function as art objects by finding new contexts and ways in which they can be considered. The architecture of memory will be of specific importance and the collection and dissemination of oral histories, first-hand witness testimony, and material witness analysis will help to provide starting points for further investigation in student-initiated investigations. Some practices we will consider are individuals that are redefining what research-based art could entail and who are working through direct engagement with their subjects such as: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Susan Schuppli, Hiwa K, Gala Porras Kim, Jill Magid, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Shadi Habib Allah, Renee Green, Taryn Simon, Pierre Huyghe, and Sean Raspet.
Research through field work and investigatory studio practice will proceed after initial critiques to assess and address issues interwoven into student work. Discussions will be tailored to efforts that give an overview of organizations, funding, media partnerships, and other meaningful connections that will be crucial in carrying out research and implementation on a case basis. The final will consist of a presentation that could be the exhibition of research, evidence, art works, performances, or a combination thereof, but could also consist of off-site works or collaborations whether with other students in the class, local or international organizations, or individuals yet to be identified.
Highly recommended for Upper Term students.
Credits
3
FIELD
FIELD is a class that utilizes field trips to explore ideas of site in its meaning for those that live in the Los Angeles area past, present and future. This class cultivates a keen awareness of the contextualization of site as investigation, enjoyment, content source and responsibility within the metropolitan area of Los Angeles County. This class welcomes the articulation and practice of all kinds of art media within student's art practice. Through direct experience, students will visit 5 distinct and geographically separate neighborhoods to learn about both their historical roles in the fabric of Los Angeles as aesthetic muse and source of intellectual engagement. Los Angeles is a site in which significant cultural capital is produced, shared within, and exported from these areas. Modes of transport, cell phone will be needed (and masks worn in a COVID aware socially distanced class) when we meet at each outdoor location. Here we will generate art through participating in physical, visual, spatial, spiritual, intellectual and sensual connections that we access through our various spatial movements. Since "Field" is excursion oriented it meets for a full day 9:00am-6pm, weeks 1-8. This course consists of independently directed art-making. It, therefore, adapts to the individual student's needs and can be taken every summer term without repeating course content.
Credits
3
Field
FIELD is a class that utilizes field trips to explore ideas of site, its meaning for those that live in the Los Angeles area past and future and especially for contemporary artists. This class cultivates the awareness of contextualization of site as investigation, enjoyment, source and responsibility within the metropolitan area of Los Angeles and welcomes the articulation and practice of all kinds of art media within student's art practice.
Through direct experience students will visit 5 distinct and geographically separate neighborhoods to learn about both their historical roles in the fabric of Los Angeles as well as the ways in which cultural capital is produced, shared within, and exported from these areas. Various modes of transport, Car, Metro, and walking, will be utilized to create physical, visual, spatial, spiritual, intellectual and sensual connections through the involvement with disparate modes of experience attained via daily migratory patterns.
Since "Field" is excursion oriented it meets for a full eight-hour day 9:00am-5:50pm weeks 1-9. Weeks 10-14 are independent investigations culminating in an exhibition at 870.
Credits
3
FIELD
FIELD is a class that utilizes field trips to explore ideas of site and its meaning for those that live in the Los Angeles area. Through direct experience students will visit distinct and geographically separate neighborhoods to learn about both their historical roles in the fabric of Los Angeles as well as the ways in which cultural capital is produced, shared within, and exported from these areas. Various modes of transport, Car, Metro, and walking, will be utilized to create physical, visual, spatial, and intellectual connections through the involvement with disparate modes of experience attained via daily migratory patterns. Contemporary and historical art, artworks, and artists will be the central lens from which all trips and experiences will arise.
Credits
3
Projects
Projects is a course in which students propose, develop, and produce a new self-directed project. Students work independently and within small groups under the guidance of fine art department faculty and are provided skill-based learning as needed for each project. This course consists of independently directed artmaking. It therefore adapts to the individual student's needs and can be taken every summer term without repeating course content.
Credits
3
5th Term Review
Fifth Term Review class is a preparation course to assist students for participating in their fifth term review. In this important review, students will need to present a body of current work to Fine Art Department core faculty, write a statement about their work, and demonstrate an ability to discuss directions and issues within their own artistic production. This course acts as a departmental gate between lower division "foundation" courses and upper division level classes based on individual pursuits, including their Senior Projects graduation exhibition.
Fifth Term Review is a required class which acts as the prerequisite for ART 401 - Post Re-Thinking Art (6th term) and for ART451- Senior Projects 1 (7th term) and ART 452 Senior Projects 2 (8th term).
NOTE: Previously entitled, Mid-Program Review, this review now takes places in the students fifth term - when a student meets the 60 units requirement.
Credits
3
One on One C
One on One is a required course for all lower term Fine Art students. A faculty advisor meets with you individually three times (for one hour each) a term to discuss issues ranging from course advising to your overall educational experience. One on One must be taken terms one (ART 105), and two (ART 205). One on One Three, (305) can be waive-subbed for ART 222A"Openings." Individual meeting times will be arranged between the student and faculty at the beginning of the term. The three meetings must be scheduled as follows: Meeting 1 in the first 2 weeks of the semester; Meeting 2 between week 7 and 8; Meeting 3 between week 12 and 13. Faculty members do not reschedule meetings. Missing a meeting will fail the class.
Credits
1
Advanced Painting
Advanced Painting is a class that will allow students the ability to create, develop and maintain a sophisticated studio practice in the field of painting. Students will research and develop an independent project in the field of painting that will be pursued throughout the term in a manner chosen by them that will culminate in final presentations and critiques at the end of the term. All iterations of the medium will be covered down to the most intimate detail and possibilities for surface and format will be explored completely. Students will be exposed in particular to techniques, formats and materials that have not been covered in previous less advanced classes as well as a deeper reading and understanding of more traditional mediums. All iterations of painting will be permitted and students will not be restricted to only a two dimensional format. Emphasis will be on the development and comprehension of course material as well as the creation of work that could potentially be used for portfolio and further advancement including graduate school application. There will also be a strong focus on examining the history of painting from the past to the immediate present and students will constantly be exposed to the extensive body of information that is contemporary painting. Museum, gallery visits and any other outside information will be an important part of the class as we will seek out any and all relevant information available during the course of the term. Students will be graded on the sophistication, development and presentation of their work. Class participation as well as the ability to pursue discourse within this chosen field will be very important and will factor into the grading process.
Credits
3
Realisms
REALISMS: Representational Strategies in Contemporary Painting The course will examine the historical trajectory of Realism in painting as a political form. Taking as its starting point Linda Nochlin's 1973 essay The Realist Criminal and Abstract Law, our research will follow the historically intellectualized and politicized opposition between Realism and Anti-realism. Through a selection of readings we will investigate a plurality of stylistic strategies (Realisms), from primitivism, surrealism, social realism, cubism, and hyper-realism, that align visually disparate languages of representation as discursive working models of opposition. The studio aspect will unfold through projects that will address the meta-tropes of Realist painting - Still-Life, Figure, and Landscape - through the lens of criticality. Students will be asked to make works that claim a point of view that aligns their personal artistic relationship with Realism and Representation within the parameters and goals of the above formats. Supplemental discussions and lectures on artists, techniques, and processes, will assist in contextualizing relevant contemporary practices that use historical genre, representation, and Realism to address relevant current topics, social issues, and identitie
Credits
3
Fiber Art
An intensive skills class to cover basics in crochet, knitting, macramé, and frame-loom weaving. This class is an introduction to a range of techniques associated with fiber arts. Through readings and discussions students will learn how artists who work with fiber address issues around process and material, as well as ideas around labor, value, sexual politics, and political activism. In addition to hands-on learning, there will be class discussions around reading materials from the curators, artists, and academics on various aspects of fiber art.
Credits
3
The Art of Things
How can the materials that construct an artwork support our goals for its content? This question will be put to task in this class, which asks students to align materials and their meanings socially, historically and through metaphor and symbolism. As a staring point this course will act as an introduction to the ideas of Structuralism, its roots in Modernism, and examine ways to expand on the movement's strategies and models of representation. In doing so we will explore ways to align and appropriate historical tactics to make works dealing with contemporary issues, with a focus on identity, and politics.
Through a series of projects, students will gain insight into the possibilities of using structuralist methodologies beginning with using only the constituent materials of painting -the support, canvas, and paint- and expanding toward more non-traditional materials. Experiments with additive, subtractive, and negational approaches to constructing paintings will consider the form as both object and image. Supplemental discussions and lectures on artists, techniques, and processes, will assist in contextualizing relevant contemporary practices that use this historical movement to address relevant current topics,social issues, and identities.
Credits
3
Walls: Public Art and Culture
Indonesia is the largest island country in the world. The country's 17,000 islands support one of the world's highest levels of biodiversity, and are home to over 400 ethnic groups representing many languages, religions and cultures. The US has the third largest population of Indonesians living outside of Indonesia, and about one-third of these Indonesian-Americans reside in Los Angeles. The Indonesian Consulate recently established a new center in Los Angeles to support and serve the Indonesian community and forge connections with Los Angeles. How might the new Consulate in Los Angeles celebrate the diversity of Indonesia and Los Angeles? How might the external spaces use art to welcome and reflect the Indonesian community? In this 7-week studio, students will work with the Indonesian Consulate, Indonesian community groups, artists and designers to research and understand the history of Indonesia and Indonesians living in Los Angeles. Students will generate concepts for murals for the Indonesian Consulate center in Los Angeles that celebrate and reflect the diversity of Indonesia and Indonesians in Los Angeles. The Indonesian Consulate will select and fund the implementation of one or more student concepts.
Credits
2
Dandelion + Mushrooms
DANDELION + MUSHROOMS: A RADICAL LABORATORY is a course that explores art as a holistic practice, one that fosters day-dreaming, wandering, wondering, playing, questioning, collecting, cultivating, and building new ways of making art and becoming well in (and with) the world. Together we will discover and share modes of building resilience by becoming more attuned to the very systems (neo-liberal conditions) that hold us back, do not include us, or, worse, traumatize and oppress us. By becoming aware, we can begin the process of navigating the what-is-already-out-there and the materiality needed to make way for sustainable and flourishing lives. To do this, we have to get as radical as dandelions and mushrooms - two critical detoxifiers and generators of information, each with its intelligent system of healing others and connecting across species.
What can dandelions and mushrooms teach us? They can show us how we exist in whole systems AND, more so, how we can and must thrive not despite but because of the crisis-capitalism that is depriving us of sustainable lives. It is vital that artists understand solidarity economics - what it is and how we can build new ways of supporting each other. How can we become better Eco-materialists? What are the implications of being an artist, and how can we use that to develop new ways of being for us and other communities, human or otherwise. In short, DANDELION + MUSHROOMS: A RADICAL LABORATORY is a class in world-building through art-making and the new paradigms that await our attention; they are out there.
This course is an inquiry into alternative, sustainable, and expansive forms of art production and being. Students create new or build upon existing work (either independently or collaboratively) and find empowering ways to share and show their work. It is important to note that this class is a collective lab where students decide the paths of the course, the goals to be accomplished, shape the interests at hand, and determine how to take charge of their art and lives. Come prepared to get radical.
Credits
3
Art As Land Acknowledgment
Art as Land Acknowledgment Through their creative practice, students will reflect on frameworks and concepts such as decolonization, settler colonialism, and healing, among others, to practice situating themselves within these unceded lands as allies, using land-based artmaking. Printmaking, augmented reality (AR), and other art forms will be mediums used to consider how to make actionable these land acknowledgments.
Credits
3
Performance
Over the course of the term, students will think about the role of performance art as an extension of daily experience and gain a better understanding what it means to use their body, identity and personal experiences as a tool in an artistic practice. They will produce their own unique vocabulary of actions, gestures and movements as it pertains to performance. Through readings, lectures and extensive in-class and out-of-class assignments, students will focus upon removing notions of success, talent and failure.
Credits
3
Studio Visits
Working artists in and around Los Angeles open their studios and allow students to witness the activity of art fabrication while engaging in critical dialogue about the content of the work.
Credits
3
Costume & Design
Art and fashion have been closely related for a long time and have grown ever closer in the modern era. It appears that in the 21st century the speed and frequency with which ideas flow between the two areas is accelerating, some clear evidence of which is Karl Lagerfeld's Spring 2014 show at the Grand Palais based on contemporary art references, a similar contemporaneous show in Milano from Miuccia Prada and collaborations between Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby). The common view of the art/fashion nexus is that the flow between the two is mainly uni-directional, that fashion draws freely on (sometimes illicitly appropriating) fine art and incorporates it into fashion garments in ways ranging from oblique references to near-exact reproductions. This view, however, is inaccurate: Though not as obvious, usually indirect and with specific examples less easy to cite, the flow of ideas and information from fashion to fine art is substantive and important. Fine art is not created in temporal and cultural isolation chambers: artists operate from within historical/geographical/cultural contexts and contribute to and are located within a 'visual' zeitgeist (to use Hegel's term). Nowadays the visual zeitgeist in which artists operate is a veritable universe composed of innumerable pieces of visual data relating to color, shape, pattern, scale, cultural references and more, with an ever-shifting geography of trends, preferences, hierarchies, innovations and terminations. This zeitgeist, though, is created not just by the output of artists but by the output of designers, of all types, all of whom are constantly making choices related to those visual variables: it is in fact an 'art/design zeitgeist'. Fashion is perhaps the single largest area of design, and certainly the area that directly affects most people; it is arguably therefore the most important of the design fields. By the nature of its product it is also the most dynamic area of design, in a constant state of innovation and flux, with an accelerated rate of turnover. Its contribution to the 'art/design zeitgeist' in every aspect, is enormous and its influence on all the other areas of design and on fine art is constant and deep. It is important for students of fine art to understand the connections between their own discipline and that of design, specifically fashion design, through the commonality of the same 'art/design zeitgeist'. A course on this topic should include sessions reviewing specific examples, historical and contemporary, of the art/fashion nexus, operating in both directions, as well as, perhaps, an overview of some of the related philosophical writings on the subject. Class assignments could include creation of fine art and/or fashion garments displaying influence from the other discipline. On a practical note, fashion designers are increasingly looking to recruit new employees with a background in fine art, finding that artists' creative instincts often give rise to original ideas that can effectively incorporated into new garment designs. This course could give fine art majors an insight into an alternative outlet for their training and skills.
Credits
3
Historical Abyss
The Historical Abyss - Daniel Small
History is always being imaginatively figured as it is seemingly figured out. This course will proceed from the notion that history is not written from the certitude of concrete facts, but rather in the productive unreliability of lived and invested memories, myths, ideologies, stories, and dreams. It will also seek to recognize that these errors, myths, and confabulations lead us through and beyond facts to their meanings and that the dubious reliability of such wrong tales enhance their historical value in that they allow us to recognize the objectives of the tellers and the intentions and desires behind them. Topics of discussion include: art forgeries, abandoned film sets, theme parks, and casino designs. Through a triangulation of past, present, and possible future, the synthesis of these sites and objects will be examined for potentially constituting more authentic versions of the histories they seemingly approximate. The course will take on a myriad of forms, including lectures and discussions with diverse specialists, for example FBI Agents, Curators, and Artists.
Credits
3
Art and Theory in Practice
This course aims to provide students with an overview of key theoretical concepts from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and apply those concepts in a rigorous, generative way to artistic production. Special attention will be paid to history of critical theory-as-liberation., with an emphasis on post colonial, feminist, and Marxist thought.
Credits
3
Summer Studio
"Summer Studio" centers on the individual student and the development of their work as an independently motivated practice.
Students are provided a studio space as well the time and attention to create a new body of work or series. In addition to cultivating and furthering one's studio practice, students meet weekly for individual meetings with faculty as well as for directed group discussions and facilitated peer reviews.
Credits
3
Visiting Artist Workshop
Intermediate and upper term workshop, taught by a different Visiting Artist each term, focusing on art issues that have fueled each artist's respective studio practice. Martin Kersels, Liz Larner, Jason Rhodes, Lyle Ashton Harris, Jennifer Pastor, Richard Hawkins, Toba Khedoori, Sam Durant, Amy Adler and Jim Shaw are recent visiting artists. Topics have included: autobiography and representation - constructions of the self; enigmas of race; the art of autobiography and lying; the body as metaphor; form and context.
Credits
3
Open Crit
Open Crit class provides students with an opportunity for more in-depth discussion about their work in a group critique environment. Open Crit is open to all students working in all mediums and media. The dynamics of Open Crit is unique, because it will be coordinated by a Fine Art Graduate student and Undergraduate Eighth-Term Fine Art student, offering a peer-to-peer evaluation and discussion about current student work across all terms.
Credits
3
Advanced Workshop
This course functions as an individualized and specifically tailored interdisciplinary term of study for advanced students terms 5 and above. Enrolled students will already have a solid foundational and conceptual approach to their unique practice, hence each student will embark on self directed work to bring three finished pieces to fruition over the course of the term. Students will receive lectures and readings specific to their chosen journey in making to help them further solidify and contextualize themselves within historical and contemporary practices. Students will also delve further into their mediums of choice and seek ways of bringing their conceptual and visual ideas to fruition within the limitations of those mediums.
Credits
3
Image & Consequence
This course will provide a platform for students who are looking to develop, expand, or hope to locate a critical conversation that links image discourse to systemic societal issues within their studio practice. Course activities includes lectures, group research projects, student led discussions, field trips, and adaptive studio projects followed by critiques.
"We currently live in an era of declaration - US vs. THEM mentality. Our information media platforms are getting less polite, and societies' image of cultural correctness is being challenged and redefined through dominant and subdominant media sources. As people's inherited and informed opinions manifest into media-based experiences, these gestures are systemically affecting how people consequentially and psychologically experience the world - especially when opposing value systems collide. Through research and studio projects, this course will provide a platform for students to develop a critical conversation around societal issues that links the image to the human experience as separate and connected, foreground and background, or compassionately as positive and negative forces that shapes the self in relation to others."
Credits
3
Art in the Age of Neuroscience
Technical advances in brain imaging offer new insights into the neurological underpinnings of consciousness. Yet the new science of mind leaves many unanswered questions regarding philosophical, cultural and spiritual aspects of subjectivity. Who is the "I" that makes art and who is the "I" that experiences it? Drawing from a broad range of disciplines, this hybrid seminar / studio course examines questions of subjective experience while paying particular attention to media and linguistic theory, cognitive psychology and theories of consciousness. The material is topical and the readings are guided. Of paramount importance is your commitment. Active participation in discussions, activities, self-directed research and creative production is required.
Credits
3
Advanced Drawing
Drawing has always been an important part of artistic practice from the simple thumbnail sketch to drawing as a primary medium. In the last ten years, drawing has become the topic of many books and exhibitions that chronicle drawings expanded definition in contemporary art. Advanced Drawing will explore the role of drawing in contemporary art through projects, lectures, critiques and field trips. The goal of this class is to challenge your definition of drawing, and to set into motion a personal drawing practice that fits your sensibilities as an artist. Students will leave this class with an expanded definition of drawing in the twenty first century.
Credits
3
Experimental Animation
This Experimental Animation course is designed to give students an intensive overview of animation as a fine arts practice - ranging from the projected image to the sculptural. In the class, we will be screening and studying a variety of artists and how they use the form as expression outside of the traditional narrative structure we see in the mainstream. Some artists include: Takeshi Murata, Ryo Orikasa, Janie Geiser, Caleb Wood, Melissa Ferrari, Pia Borg, Nienke Deutz, Martha Colburn, Dahee Jeong, Eric Dyer, Anthony McCall and others.?
Accompanying these screenings, a workshop portion will allow students to put into practice their own ideas of what experimental animation is by utilizing some basic techniques explored in the course. Some techniques include: Replacement, Collage, Rotoscope, Pixelation, and object animation. With the use of the Dragonframe software, one will investigate objects/materials utilizing the camera; studying its textures, forms, as well as any inherent movement it might produce. By the end, students will have a handful of short animation exercises completed as well as a final piece utilizing ideas learned within the course that can potentially take the form of: short video/film, installation, sculpture or photographic series.
Credits
3
Compendium
Drawing is often used as a tool to reveal the creative thought process, or supplement a primary artistic medium further down the line (be that painting, sculpture, video, etc.). The goal of this course will be to develop a fluency with various approaches to drawing that may prove useful to the artist in the long-term. Each week the students will be given a prompt from which they will make a number of thoroughly conceived and subsequently execiued drawings or paintings on paper, employing various mediums (graphite, ink, watercolor, etc.). Class time will be spent drawing and conducting individual meetings.
Credits
3
Seminar
Seminar is a course where students from our studio classes come together one day a week to show work, engage in peer-to-peer dialogues, and simultaneously examine what the studio critique is. Seminar is also a course in community-building with fellow artists. This course consists of independently directed art-making. It, therefore, adapts to the individual student's needs and can be taken every summer term without repeating course content.
As part of the Fine Art Summer Program, Seminar is taught as an 8-week studio with 6-week self-study.
Credits
3
Sound Design
This class addresses basic concepts of sound, acoustics, sound design, sonic relationships and Sound Art. Emphasis will be placed on learning practical techniques to create to create original stand-alone. sound projects, and sound for video. Topics include : Basic acoustics; the physics of sound; frequency partitions. Sound perceptions and human orientation; listening; sound characteristics. Recording Tools and techniques. "Cleaning-up" sound and field recordings. Really listening. Sound Art: a survey.
Credits
3
Seminar B
"Seminar" is the lynch pin class of the Summer term. It is premised on the programming that occurs in artist residencies and graduate art program where artists come together to build discussions around artists' work. In this course, students gather in the morning for visiting artist talks and discussions and, in the afternoon, gather for a group discussions to their peers' work. This is primarily a student-led discussion class with facilitation by two faculty members. Each student can expect to have at least one critique over the course of eight weeks.
"Seminar B" can also be taken as a separate class (3 credit units) if you are enrolled in printmaking or any of the ART "gatepost" courses (Art Structures+Systems, 5th Term Review, Post Re-thinking and Senior Projects 1 and 2). Chair petition is required.
"Seminar B" is scheduled from 9:00am-3:50pm weeks 1-8. Weeks 9-14 are independent investigations culminating in an exhibition at 870 week 13.
Credits
3
Art Agency
This course builds students' capacity to influence thoughts and behaviors to support their growing practice as an artist and citizens of the world. Students will workshop holistic approaches to their artmaking while gaining knowledge of the interworking of various art organizations. These entities span from galleries, museums, art nonprofits, collectors, and critics, among others. Students will develop archiving methods for their work, curate an exhibition and work on teams to meet deadlines. Art Agency is designed to prepare students for social engagements within the art world and their studio.
Credits
3
Advanced Studio
"Advanced Studio" is a studio class for advanced undergraduate students working in all mediums. The purpose of the class is to provide ample studio time for students to develop their individual studio projects in an open studio/seminar environment under faculty guidance. The studio aspect of the class is enhanced by intensive weekly group critiques of new work or works-in-progress. Emphasis will be on creating a thematically cohesive body of work and/or ambitious project which reflects the culmination of knowledge and exploration the student has achieved. "Advance Studio" is a prerequisite (or co-requisite depending on credit units) for ART-451, "Senior Projects 1," and a prerequisite for ART-452, "Senior Projects 2". "Advanced Studio" can be taken in lieu of ART 401_"Post ReThinking Art."
Credits
3
Body of Work
Body of Work is a studio-seminar for advanced undergraduate students working in all mediums. The purpose of the class is to provide ample studio time for students to develop their individual studio projects in an open studio/seminar environment under faculty guidance. The studio aspect of the class will be enhanced by intensive weekly group critiques of new work or works-in-progress. Body of Work is a prerequisite for ART-452, Senior Projects 2. This course can be taken 6th or 7th term in conjunction with ART- 451 Senior Projects 1 .
Credits
3
Intro to Fiber Arts
Intro to Fiber Arts
This intensive skills-based course will introduce you to a range of techniques associated with fiber arts, including the basics of crochet, knitting, frame-loom weaving, natural dyeing, and hand- and machine-sewing. Through readings and discussions, you will learn how artists who work with fiber address issues around process and material, as well as ideas around labor, value, sexual politics, political activism, and consider the ever-shifting relationship between craft and art. In addition to hands-on learning, there will be class discussions around reading materials from curators, artists, and academics on various aspects of fiber art. Estimated cost of supplies: $100 (minimum). No prerequisite.
Credits
3
Painting Projects
Through experimentation, research, making, and critical conversation, students will develop a body of work that generates and addresses their own questions about painting. Students will confront the material nature of paint and consider their work in an art historical context as well as being engaged with the contemporary dialogue in fine art.
Credits
3
Graduate Seminar
The Graduate Art department visiting lecture series. Guests include internationally recognized artists, critics, art historians, architects, filmmakers, and writers from Los Angeles and around the globe.
Permission by Dept Chair required.
Credits
3
Theories of Construction
Concerned with the critiquing of student work. The object of the class is to develop, through class analysis, a sense of the theoretical implications and foundations of the work of each of the participants.
Permission by Dept Chair required.
Credits
3
Culture: Identity & Ethnicity
Culture: Identity and Ethnicity is a 1-unit course designed to provide a broad understanding of the language, processes, and power of visual experience through material and how we see our individual Culture through our Identity and Ethnicity. This course promotes concept development, creative thinking and visual problem solving. Projects will be based on a concern for how each person examines and explores, ultimately interprets, and recreates the world around them. Through a series of interdisciplinary readings, lectures, videos, and field trips, we will explore the "language," "material," and "thought" surrounding contemporary art. Our primary task concerns looking at art and the aesthetic process by engaging a set of related creative and cultural issues that have to do with who we are and how we live.
Credits
1
Senior Projects 1
Credits 3Senior Projects 1
Senior Projects 1 is the first class in a two-term course series that culminates the experience of the fine art major and addresses relevant issues in preparation for a life in art after graduation. Seventh term students will each present a group exhibition (or individual shows when schedule permits) as preparation for their senior exhibition the following term. SP 1 students will also be required to act as a crit leader for one of the Senior Projects' shows, participate in the class, write a one-page response essay to each SP1 and SP2 show, and complete a full draft of their Senior Thesis essay.
Credits
3
Senior Projects Thesis 1
Over the two terms of Senior Projects, students develop and complete a 7-10 page thesis about their work. Through a series of workshops and individual meetings, students work with a faculty thesis advisor to develop their writing. By the end of Senior Projects One, students submit a draft of their thesis and by the end of Senior Projects Two, a final draft.
The theses are then discussed with their classmates and faculty in an end-of-term roundtable. Ultimately, through writing a thesis, students not only gain further insight into their work but build the confidence needed to take their art practice out into the world.
Senior Projects Thesis 1 is a co-requisite class to be taken with ART 451 Senior Projects 1.
Credits
0
Senior Projects 2
Credits 3Senior Projects 2
Senior Projects 2 is the second class in this two-term course. It is a culmination of the student's experience as a fine art major and addresses relevant issues in preparation for a life in art after graduation. Graduating students develop a cohesive body of individual work for their senior exhibition in the undergraduate gallery. SP2 students will also be required: to act as a crit leader for one of the Senior Projects' shows; participate in the class; write a one-page response essay to each SP1 and SP2 show; and write a final draft of their Senior Thesis essay.
Credits
3
Senior Projects Thesis 2
Credits 0Senior Projects Thesis 2
Over the two terms of Senior Projects, students develop and complete a 7-10 page thesis about their work. Through a series of workshops and individual meetings, students work with a faculty thesis advisor to develop their writing. By the end of Senior Projects One, students submit a draft of their thesis and by the end of Senior Projects Two, a final draft.
The theses are then discussed with their classmates and faculty in an end-of-term roundtable. Ultimately, through writing a thesis, students not only gain further insight into their work but build the confidence needed to take their art practice out into the world.
Senior Projects Thesis 2 is a co-requisite class to be taken with ART 452 Senior Projects 2
Credits
0
Senior Exhibition
Senior Projects: Exhibition is a two-term course series that culminates the experience of the Undergraduate Fine Art major and addresses relevant issues in preparation for a life in art after graduation. Taken in tandem with Senior Projects: Thesis, this section focuses on the development of exhibition strategies, planning, and the implementation of the capstone thesis exhibition and GradShow. Students will develop and present a cohesive body of work each term in the undergraduate gallery, act as a critique leader for one of their peers and participate in weekly exhibition critiques both verbally and in writing. Workshops on presentation strategies will further assist in preparing students for their exhibition presentations.
Credits
3
Senior Thesis
Senior Projects: Thesis is a two-term course series that culminates the experience of the Undergraduate Fine Art major and addresses relevant issues in preparation for a life in art after graduation. Taken in tandem with Senior Projects: Exhibition, this section focuses on the development of a portfolio of interrelated texts that accompany each student's exhibition. Over the course of two terms students will develop a research paper that connects with themes relevant to their exhibition, an artist statement, press release and bio. Weekly workshops will focus on tailoring writing to accompany exhibitions and applications for grants, residencies, and graduate programs.
Credits
3
Undergraduate/Graduate Seminar
The Undergraduate/Graduate Art Seminar offers advanced Fine Art degree students an opportunity to participate in the AGA-554 Graduate Art seminar. Enrollment is granted by petition through the Fine Art Undergraduate Chair.
"AGA-554 "Graduate Art Seminar". This course is a visiting lecture series held weekly in the evening in conjunction with the Graduate Fine Art program. Guests include internationally recognized artists, critics, art historians, architects, filmmakers, writers from Los Angles and around the globe."
Students enrolled in this class will be required to attend all lectures plus have strong reading and writing skills.
Credits
3
Senior Projects 1
Over the two terms of Senior Projects, students develop and complete a 7-10 page thesis about their work. Through a series of workshops and individual meetings, students work with a faculty thesis advisor to develop their writing. By the end of Senior Projects One, students submit a draft of their thesis and by the end of Senior Projects Two, a final draft. The theses are then discussed with their classmates and faculty in an end-of-term roundtable. Ultimately, through writing a thesis, students not only gain further insight into their work but build the confidence needed to take their art practice out into the world. Senior Projects Thesis 1 is a co-requisite class to be taken with ART 451 Senior Projects 1.
Credits
3
Senior Projects 2
Over the two terms of Senior Projects, students develop and complete a 7-10 page thesis about their work. Through a series of workshops and individual meetings, students work with a faculty thesis advisor to develop their writing. By the end of Senior Projects One, students submit a draft of their thesis and by the end of Senior Projects Two, a final draft. The theses are then discussed with their classmates and faculty in an end-of-term roundtable. Ultimately, through writing a thesis, students not only gain further insight into their work but build the confidence needed to take their art practice out into the world. Senior Projects Thesis 2 is a co-requisite class to be taken with ART 452 Senior Projects 2
Credits
3
Berlin History and Artists
With one of the most vibrant cultures in the world, Berlin is a highly multicultural city with a rich and complex history. In this course, we will examine how notions of German identity have been shaped by that history and investigate its ramifications in contemporary art. The travel portion of the Berlin trip will visit museums, galleries and historical sites, as well as allow students to meet artists and curators and attend events. This class is composed of a pre-trip meetings (approximately 7 three-hour classes) that will include lectures, readings, screenings; and then an immersive 12-day study-away experience in Berlin during the Spring/Summer break.
Credits
3
Wet Paint TDS
What's the significance of painting as an art? We'll begin by discussing it as a triangulated force-field: One corner comprises the intentions of the artist who creates the painting; a second comprises the expectations of the beholder who views the painting; and a third comprises the unique demands of paint itself. These three vertices are connected by a long history of painterly practice, punctuated by theoretical attempts to understand, promote, and exploit both painting and its practitioners. We'll explore these powerful connections in an attempt to discover the center (or centers) of the painting-triangle. Special emphasis will be placed on the state of painting today. Expect a substantial amount of academic homework. Students will be asked to read texts each week, write responses to what they read, integrate their thinking with their practice-and, above all, get wet.
This Humanities & Sciences course is an integrated co-requisite to the Studio Wet Paint TDS.
CO-REQUISITE: TDS-342
Credits
3
Sierra Summer: Making
This is an immersive class with two significant excursions to the Eastern Sierra. In the tradition of the ArtCenter course, Dandelions and Mushrooms, Sierra Summer delves into the Eastern Sierra's diverse landscape. In a time when reconnecting with nature is paramount, Sierra Summer will allow students to engage with colonial and indigenous histories, merging geography, flora and fauna of unique biomes, and geology with hands-on artistic practice-crafting natural dyes, pigments, paper, and sound recordings. Using all five senses to connect with the land as both muse and collaborator, students work towards a final piece to be shown in a group exhibition, fostering a holistic understanding of the Eastern Sierra's cultural, historical, and ecological facets. In doing so students will value the natural resources that are endangered in this era of human made climate-change. Students will be required to keep a working sketchbook or journal during the term in which they will record their research, findings, interests, and project ideas that will be turned in at the end of the term.
Credits
3
Art Lab
Speculative Ecologies - Ecozone "Undevelopment" - Floodplain Revitalization
This nine-week course delves into the concept of post-human infrastructure, focusing on the Los Angeles River and floodplain eco-zones in downtown Los Angeles. Through the lens of speculative ecology, we will explore hypothetical scenarios for the regeneration of this area, envisioning a future where ecological systems are prioritized. We will also explore creative solutions for promoting ecological regeneration and resilience at the site of the LA River in downtown LA. Each student will choose a specific site along the LA River and the floodplains eco-zones to study. Exploring their biggest concerns about the area, they work directly with Metabolic Studio's bioremediation team, Farmlab. Incorporating insights from their individual research and class group discussions, students create projects that are embedded in ideas of speculative ecology while prioritizing the regeneration of the Los Angeles River and floodplain eco-zones. By the end of the course, students will have gained a deeper understanding of the potential for post-human infrastructure and the role that we, as artists or designers, can play in promoting ecological resilience.
Metabolic Studios/FarmLab https://www.metabolicstudio.org/farmlab@metabolics tudios
Credits
3
Dandelion+MushroomsEco Prac
Dandelions and Mushroom: Ecological Practices is a Transdisciplinary Studio. The class explores the ecological in creative and cultural practices. Taking its model from the ecosystems of dandelions and mushrooms (healing networks,) this course investigates the intelligence and strategies of plants, practicalities and philosophies of ecological knowledges, relationships to pollution and colonialism, issues of environmental justice, and the significance of lifecycles in how we create, produce, live and consume in the world.
Students engage in experiments tending plants, using their hands, and building individual and group projects. The use of sustainable materials, including recycled or repurposed materials, is emphasized. Through field trips to important sites such as the Salton Sea, water and land restoration projects, landfills, and gardens, students explore ecosystems of Southern California, which are as varied as they are imperfect, complicated, even unjust, and yet connected. Guest speakers help us investigate how to build reciprocal roles with the environment. This class asks students to consider their engagement with living and non-living matter as it relates to healing both the planet and ourselves.
Credits
3
Confronting X
This is a a course to compliment the 2023 ArtCenter alumni exhibition "Identificar X." This class will provide historical and contemporary context and expand the ever-evolving and fraught Latin(x) identity discourse. Throughout the term, students will participate in challenging research, discussions, site visits, workshops, and collective on-campus installations to critically examine topics around the Latin American Diaspora, origins of colonial class and race, systems of power and oppression, politics, literature, mythologies, the study of cultural practices and signifiers, and the familial gaze. At the end of the term, research and new artworks created during the class will be presented in a student-led on-campus exhibition.
Credits
3
Wearable Art
In this course students will consider the role between contemporary art and fashion and the overlap which exists between these medias. Art and fashion are constantly referencing one another and borrowing ideas. Considering the history of art production, students will apply artistic strategies to challenge traditional form and function, while reflecting on the construction of gender, politics and contemporary culture. Students will produce art objects, as well as participate in reading, discussions and field trips. Individuals will examine their own artistic practice and the manner in which one can create garments, sculptures, installations or performances to transform wearable material into a critical tool.
Credits
3
Portrait REcon
The Portrait Reconsidered course is designed to unpack contemporary portraiture's history, context, and nuances across various artistic mediums. We will discuss several themes, such as the selfie, surveillance, agency, and provocation, in relation to the portrait.
Students will hear from various voices through workshops, lectures, field trips, and open dialogue. At the end of the 14 weeks, students should have gained the knowledge and skills to develop projects around critical concepts put forward in the class. This course welcomes all majors.
Credits
3
Socially Engaged Art
Socially Engaged Art is a class that will provide a more focused and committed look at socially engaged art as a discipline by participating in collaboration with ECF artists. ACCD is fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the adult artists that are clients at ECF to produce an art project reflecting their interests and understanding of their gender and sexuality using video, sound or performance. The artists that come to the ECF art center are developmentally challenged and many have lived under the structure of institutional care and structure most of their life. Art Center students will be matched with an individual artist and get to know them at their art center in Downtown Los Angeles. After meetings and even a field trip of your choice, financial support is provided from the Pickford foundation to the Art Center student to produce a project and participate in production of support materials in dialog with their ECF artist for exhibition at their gallery. The actual process of collaboration is one we will study and research as it is pivotal to the field of social practice. The finished product and its aesthetic is up to the Art Center student to determine in this process. All these concerns will be in conversation with the variety of community based collaborative structures and ethics that we learn about in class. Through reading, writing about and looking closely at other projects in the world, and finally through practice, we will discuss and understand our role in socially engaged art at this socio/political time in this class. A preliminary visit to ECF to be arranged by faculty and/or attendance in Social Practice1 is a prerequisite for this class. Participation in the ECF exhibition, and production of material for their website and publication is a requirement.
Credits
3
Social Critique
Part studio class, part academic seminar, Social Critique takes a sobering look at our present world. Crashing through the clichés and inspirational messaging of today's "change agents," the seminar section focuses on the social, political, and economic forces eroding democracy and consolidating oligarchic powers around the world. Topics include the parallels between the present and the Gilded Age; the anti-sociality of social media; the psychic conditions of post-futurity and neo-feudalism, and the neo-liberal global economy of precarity. The studio section of the class explores cases of critical art-making from the recent past. The cases range across media: performance art; art in public spaces and sculptural objects; body art; film/video/TV; social media; posters; graphics and multiples; architecture and furniture design, as well as painting and drawing. Students will be expected to write bi-weekly short papers in response to the assigned readings and artworks shared in class. Students will submit a final assignment, which can be either an art project or a research paper.
Credits
3
Never Again 9066
"Never Again 9066" is a class rooted in the unconstitutional incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The class will present leading scholars, artists and designers, and surviving concentration camp inmates share their perspectives of this gross injustice to more than 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry, two thirds were American citizens. From this immersive experience, students will research and develop visually dynamic artworks, engaging educational materials, and a public display sharing key aspects of Japanese American history and relating them to issues of civil liberties in the present.
Credits
3
Sci-Fi
Sci-Fi is a TDS that will explore the cultural manifestations of Science Fiction. Utopias, distopias, aliens, galactic colonization, time travel, alternate realities: imagining the future has everything to do with the present. We will read, write, talk, watch films and make art about this.
Credits
3